This is on Arch Linux, x86_64 and LibreOffice 3.6.2.2. Running ./spadmin as user or as root produces the following error: "No printers can be installed, because the file system is read-only." Since LO won't save printer properties through the program I can't change PDF to Postscript and have it honored on restart of program.

On pc Debian x86-64 with 3.6 sources updated some days ago, I don't reproduce this.
Jonathan: could you give a try to a newer version?
If possible, don't hesitate to retrieve a package from Lo website (see http://www.libreoffice.org/download/) to be sure it's not packaging bug.

Jonathan: thank you for your feedback.
- Does printing work on other applications?
- did you upgrade CUPS?
- what printer do you have?
- could you give a look to this tracker:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51583 to
- retrieve logs from CUPS program?
- check your CUPS config?
It may bring you some hints

Julien, with all due respect, I don't see how CUPS has anything to do with this. Yes, I can print from all apps. I can print from LibreOffice, but I can't permanently set the printer options because of the read-only file system error.
The problem is ./spadmin error.
I have a Brother HL-2140, which is fully supported.

(In reply to comment #4)
> Julien, with all due respect, I don't see how CUPS has anything to do with
> this. Yes, I can print from all apps. I can print from LibreOffice, but I
> can't permanently set the printer options because of the read-only file
> system error.
> The problem is ./spadmin error.
> I have a Brother HL-2140, which is fully supported.
Jonathan: Sorry by rereading the comments, I thought you couldn't print at all.
Did you try to run spadmin as root? (just for the test)
It seems the code is in vcl/unx/generic/printer/printerinfomanager.cxx
685 bool PrinterInfoManager::writePrinterConfig()
686 {
...
692 for( ::std::list< WatchFile >::const_iterator wit = m_aWatchFiles.begin(); wit != m_aWatchFiles.end(); ++wit )
693 {
694 if( checkWriteability( wit->m_aFilePath ) )
695 {
696 files[ wit->m_aFilePath ] = new Config( wit->m_aFilePath );
697 break;
698 }
699 }
700
701 if( files.empty() )
702 return false;
But then I don't know to investigate more since I've got no printer to display wit->m_aFilePath values.

(In reply to comment #7)
> Julien, I have tried as root and with sudo (see first comment); makes no
> difference.
You right
I added some logs, here are the files:
file:///home/julien/compile-libreoffice/libo/install/program/../share/psprint/psprint.conf
file:///home/julien/compile-libreoffice/libo/install/program/../share/psprint/psprint.conf
file:///home/julien/compile-libreoffice/libo/install/program/../share/psprint/psprint.conf
I don't know why it uses 3 times the same path but now we know what file it tries to update

Jonathan:
do you have ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user/psprint directory?
If yes could you give precise line to know the rights?
(eg: drwxr-xr-x 2 julien julien 4096 Dec 13 20:17 ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user/psprint)

We have another report of this on FreeBSD IIRC - can we get an strace of spadmin ? I imagine it's a pointlessly unhelpful exception message for some other un-related problem :-)
An:
strace -f -s 256 -o /tmp/slog spadmin
gzip /tmp/slog
and attach it would be really helpful.
Thanks ! :-)

Hi. I use Arch, and have the same printing issue on two laptops. I have resorted to export to PDF, then printing the PDF file, but that's obviously quiet troublesome.
I've run strace on spadmin, and attach the log. I hope it's useful.

(In reply to comment #15)
> Created attachment 75099[details]
> truss of the same problem on FreeBSD with 3.6.5.2
On FreeBSD the solution is to configure --with-ppds and --enable-cups even if you don't use CUPS at all.

Removing the --without-ppds switch make it work for Arch people. It adds 2 files here:
/usr/lib/libreoffice/share/psprint/driver/SGENPRT.PS
/usr/lib/libreoffice/share/psprint/driver/SGENT42.PS
I guess removing the switch is only a workaround and doesn't cause the real issue.

Hi,
Without any notification, libreoffice on my Arch systems (Arch LibreOffice 4.0.1-2) is now printing without issue. spadmin also appears to be working. There was a -2 update on LO, so perhaps something changed in this update.
Thanks to whoever in the Arch or LO commmunity who has fixed this!
Mervin

I also encountered this very same error, on DragonFly this time.
It turned out the copy of LibreOffice I was using had no CUPS support, due to some mistake at configure time.
Parts of the print subsystem still consider CUPS support as optional and return insane error messages when it's not present.

Using a freshly-built 4.0.2 on FreeBSD I'm still seeing this problem.
LO is built with cups support (because the cups-library was installed at build-time), but cupsd is not running -- my sole printer is managed by the good old lpd.
Running spadmin as root, I am seeing a good Ukrainian translation of the same message others have reported. There are no read-only mounted filesystems and running under ktrace confirms, that in no case is the errno value of 30 (EROFS) being returned from any system call -- so the message itself is bogus and misleading.

In FreeBSD 8.3, LO 4.0.2 built from ports, with only:
CUPS SUPPORT
SDK
(via "make config"), spadmin works with LPRng. Previously (without CUPS SUPPORT), it failed with the "read-only fs" message. I don't have/use CUPS. I agree, the message is misleading (as is the workaround -_-").

Dear Bug Submitter,
Please read the entire message before proceeding.
This bug has been in NEEDINFO status with no change for at least 6 months. Please provide the requested information as soon as possible and mark the bug as UNCONFIRMED. Due to regular bug tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDINFO status with no change in 30 days the QA team will close the bug as INVALID due to lack of needed information.
For more information about our NEEDINFO policy please read the wiki located here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/FDO/NEEDINFO
If you have already provided the requested information, please mark the bug as UNCONFIRMED so that the QA team knows that the bug is ready to be confirmed.
Thank you for helping us make LibreOffice even better for everyone!
Warm Regards,
QA Team

spadmin from LibreOffice-4.0.6 still shows a bogus "No printers can't be installed, because the file system is read-only." error message.
It then proceeds to show a different dialog box with the list of cups printers configured on this machine.
LibreOffice itself prints documents without any issue.

Francois - thanks so much for the update ! I guess that would help anyone wanting to reproduce the problem too - to test the PPD-less code-path =)
I guess we should leave this open for now though; it'd be nice to have a fix for that corner-case I guess.
Really glad it's working for you now though !